Where do you live, in Poland or abroad?

I'm not sure if we had a topic like this before. We might have. If so, feel free to merge.

I know there are a lot of expats here who live in Poland but also Polish folks who live abroad. I'm just wondering where people on here/used to live and live now. Obviously exact addresses are not necessary.

anyway sorry to be picky but doesnt the term 'expat' indicate some kind of fixed term contract with extensive benefits in a wealthy oil rich country like Saudi Arabia? Not somebody who is working /living in Poland?

Or an expat is there for a fixed term, (usually) short, due to work (usually) for a foreign or international organisation and is (usually) on a fixed term visa. An immigrant is there either for ever or dreams of returning home in their old age (but rarely does) and is on a permanent visa, has citizenship or is undocumented. Within the EU, people are migrants.

Different dictionaries have differing definitions of the words. It's really in the eye of the beholder.

the closest you can get today is a Gin sling in the raffles bar Singapore,

Full of tourists now, sadly.

Cocktails on a 45th floor rooftop bar in Dubai is the modern equivalent, sipping a Mojito looking far far down at a 12 lane highway on one side and the palm island (downmarket and best seen from a distance) on the other with the lights of the Iranian coast twinkling in the distance. Probably better than Raffles was anyway, and only a few hours from Warsaw in first class...

I'm an American citizen and longterm resident of Poland with no plans to leave (not saying it wouldn't/couldn't happen, just that I'm not making plans to leave).

I'm definitely not an expat (had some brief contact with some many years ago and promptly became allergic...) and don't really regard myself as an immigrant (which implies planned behavior) or migrant (implies rootlessness). I'm not Polish but I consider myself a participating member of Polish society.

I live between Warsaw and Berlin in the first city to openly rebel against communism!

Ah done that and the skyview Bar Bar Burj Al Arab, boring after the umpteenth time of having to go there on business, you know in the Burj there is even a fella in a suit who takes care of you while you are relieving the old todger, he will even give you a little spray of something nice if you like, oh yeah he even gives you a tissue once you have washed your hands.

Now dolnoland back yard with forrest and fields, little dear wild boar foxes, dark night sky where you can gaze through the milky way with a hot cup of fresh coffee in hand is unbeatable in my opinion. Ah no more traveling life for me I have found my own little place of peace and tranquility.

Ah done that and the skyview Bar Bar Burj Al Arab, boring after the umpteenth time of having to go there on business,

Yep, those places , the surreal world of luxurious excess and flashing flunkies (that one's nice, though I prefer the one at the Sheraton Four Points round the corner on Sheik Zayed Road, has a good happy hour and fancy lighting that changes colour). When your colleague asks if you want to go to the supposed best seafood restaurant in the world, that top floor one down by the Marina, and you say no, because you're dreaming of Warsaw pierogi z mięsem in your favourite dive or Yorkshire fish n' chips at Ahmed's chippy by the rugby league ground. It's 60zl a pint at that seafood place anyway.

Now dolnoland back yard with forrest and fields, little dear wild boar foxes,

Yes, the best. Here it's the same, servants, an apartment that looks like a presidential office, limos everywhere and I'd swap the lot of it to be back home. Too young and too poor to retire just yet though. This was taken on my roof terrace back home in Warsaw, two nights ago, looking out over Puszcza Kampinoska. I'd like to be sitting there now with a can of Krolewskie.

Yes. The city by the sea that we were talking about is a prime example - it panders to that, and some people feel they have to aspire to all the bling. You get the same in Warsaw, people chasing a false ideology, thinking they're something special because they can afford a meal in such and such a place, a drink in whatever bar, do their shopping somewhere shiny (that is really nothing special at all), driving a car that isn't really theirs since they went into debt to buy it, or a flat with a wall around the building to create a false sense of exclusivity. Buying into a lifestyle that's just made up by marketing departments. Most of such people are just office clerks anyway, three mortgage or credit card payments away from penury.

You have to find your home, where you're happiest. You can never really go back to where you're from (that changes too from the day you left) and should always be happy where you are - otherwise, what's the point.

It's not always where you expect to end up. I never expected to end up in the suburbs of Warsaw, but am blissfully happy to call it home.